


Apocalypse Not Now Apparently

by epkitty



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-28
Updated: 2011-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epkitty/pseuds/epkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before the first day of the rest of their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apocalypse Not Now Apparently

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Tarot card XIII, Death.

### The Night Before the First Day of the Rest of Their Lives

 

The long-standing Arrangement between them had worked so well for so long that it seemed a shame to tamper with it. But after the Apocalypse that wasn’t, a number of things had been momentously changed forever(1).

“Crowley, where are we going?”

“After a day like today? You pulling my leg? I need a drink.”

“All right. But not the Ritz, not tonight. Let’s just go back to the bookshop, please?”

“Spoilsport,” Crowley grumbled, easing the Jeep into the left lane to exit.

So much could have gone wrong. So much nearly did. Or maybe it all _did_ come out wrong, and this wasn’t the ineffable plan after all. The more he thought about it, the more Crowley’s head ached, the more he wanted a drink, and the more he worried that it would be a really bad time for anyone from Either Side to find them together.

If Aziraphale was worried, he didn’t show it, but there was a pronounced fatigue lining his worn face.

= = = = =

“Be a dear and lock everything up behind you,” Aziraphale said as he eased himself into a chair before the fireplace that abruptly roared to life, as the fiery sword had only hours earlier.

With a thought, the quaint Soho shop was barred to the night and Crowley retrieved a slightly dusty tray with two glasses and a bottle of single malt Scotch whiskey from a cabinet in the back room they had settled in. He sneered and blew into each glass, raising clouds of dust. “How is it,” Crowley asked, “that an angel’s lair gets so dusty?” He set the tray down on a round little table between the two ill-matched chairs.

“I clean!” Aziraphale protested. “And this is not a _lair_.” He sat forward and poured out two unhealthy servings of the amber liquid. “Angels don’t have lairs.”

Crowley stared a moment. “Did this room have a fireplace yesterday?”

Aziraphale shrugged and let his head roll back to rest against the seat. “No. And I’m also fairly certain I didn’t have a Marvel Comics display in the window when I left.”

Crowley made a harrumphing noise deep in his throat, most likely fearing what he might find in _his_ flat when he got home(2). In the meantime, all he could do was pour the whiskey, add a drop of filtered water to each glass, and try to forget about the past eleven years, for a few hours anyway. Then he noticed Aziraphale just staring into the amber liquid.

“Drink, angel. You’ll feel better.” Crowley swiftly followed his own advice and then poured himself another dram.

Aziraphale exuded a rather uncharacteristic and unangelic air of melancholy as he sipped his Scotch, brows drawn together in deep thought.

“My head hurts just watching you. What are you _thinking_ about?”

“Isn’t it odd,” Aziraphale wondered, “that we haven’t heard from anyone? I half-expect Gabriel at the door any moment, demanding to know what the deuce _happened_ back there.”

“Your sort use doors? Lucky… Anyway, the Metatron was there,” Crowley pointed out. “He—”

“ _It_.”

“Whatever. —can report as well as you. I know my sort would sooner look to Beelzebub for a story than me.”

“Shows what they know, then,” Aziraphale said. “But those two weren’t around for the past eleven years… eventually, someone’s going to need to explain.”

“You mean take the blame, I suppose,” Crowley muttered into his glass. “You know how paperwork is with that sort. It could be years before they come calling.” But the doubt in his voice belied his supposition.

= = = = =

At half past three in the morning, the Scotch was gone.

“You ssstill, the thing, your face, and then…” Crowley was saying.

“Quite,” Aziraphale agreed with a fatalistic sigh.

“I mean, that blasted frown iss ssstill, iss ssstill…”

“Hissing again. There’s… thing…” Aziraphale said, “always wanted to ask you…”

“Wazzat?” Crowley asked.

“When… right.” Aziraphale attempted to sit up straight and only managed to slide a few more inches down into the overstuffed chair. “You Fell. What was it like? When you Fell?”

Crowley was bent over the arm of his chair, examining Aziraphale with squinting eyes. His sunglasses were nowhere to be seen. “I can’t… drunk. Can’t have thisss conversation. Not drunk.”

“So, be sober,” Aziraphale said.

“I can’t talk about it sssober, either.”

With a blink and a shudder, Aziraphale flushed the alcohol from his system and finally managed to sit up straight, his clear, sad eyes turned on the drunk demon. “Please.”

Crowley didn’t want to be sober. He stared at the fire, still crackling at the perfect pace of a fireplace on Christmas morning. “You don’ need t’know that. Why… d’you need to know that?”

“All this time I thought I was right, about everything. But now, I don’t think I was.”

“Then… you were wrong?” Crowley asked, tempting.

“I’m not sure there is a right and wrong.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before? And... weren’t we on opposite sides?”

Aziraphale leaned forward in a confidential manner. “What if we stopped being on opposite sides, Crowley?”

“I don’t… it’s like you said, it’s ineffable. _We_ don’t have a choice.”

“But we did. You did. You made a choice.”

“I hung with the wrong crowd. Tha’s all.”

“You were the last,” Aziraphale said. “I remember that. Tell me, Crowley. What was it like?”

Crowley maintained his drunken stare. “Dammit. Ssssstupid blue eyes,” he muttered.

“What?”

He glared, but knew a losing battle when he saw one. Crowley finally filtered the alcohol haze away and took refuge in the sight of the fire. “I hadn’t seen Gabriel in… not for ages. But he came to fetch me. He said, ‘You’ve been sent for.’ So, I went. You know what the place is like. Or maybe you don’t. Immaculate, though; that’s what it is. It was everything that was wrong with the way of things. That’s what they said. Everything was wrong. Then, **‘Crowley,’** He told me, **‘thank you. Thank you for coming.’** And this is the best part, as though I’d had a choice. He folded his hands and smiled. I still wish I knew why. Then He said, **‘It seems to me that you aren’t happy in your work. Maybe this isn’t the best fit for you, anymore.’** And the funny thing is I didn’t know what He was talking about. I’d thought I would be okay, after the others had gone. The… the temptation wouldn’t be there anymore. **‘It would be best for you to go,’** He said.”

Crowley slumped in his chair, a lost expression on his handsome human face.

There was something innocent and frightened in Aziraphale’s curious eyes.

Crowley’s stare became menacing. “You want to know what it’s like to Fall?”

The angel whispered, “Yes. Does it hurt?”

“Does it hurt?” Crowley echoed lowly. Then he smiled. “Hurts like Hell(3).”

Aziraphale paled and drew back, sinking into the depths of his chair.

"Why?" Crowley asked, half afraid to. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, we seem so similar, but I know some things are… are different for us. For some things, it would take me a lot of effort… But I-I think you're worth the effort, Crowley."

Crowley stared, deadpan. "Angel. Are you trying to get into my pants?"

Aziraphale blushed, a rather attractive transformation.

The angel stuttered out, "It seems a shame to tamper with an Arrangement that's behooved us so well for so long--"

"But?"

"I've been rethinking some things--"

"And?"

"I mean, it isn't expressly forbidden--"

"Right," Crowley said, standing up. "Let's go."

All confusion, Aziraphale blinked up at him. "Go where?"

"Upstairs. Where the bed is. I'm too old to be ravishing you on the floor."

"Oh," Aziraphale blushed again. "We could just--"

"It's tradition, sex in bed. We can try everything else later."

Only the minutest pause preceded Aziraphale's acceptance of Crowley's hand up.

"Awfully romantical," Crowley said, in a soft voice for just the two of them. "Two old enemies after all this time--"

"Does ravishing normally involve this much talking?" Aziraphale asked.

Crowley laughed and pulled him toward the stairs. "Don't forget who you're dealing with. I'm a demon, after all. Which gives you a good excuse," he said with mock severity, holding up a finger as though to make a point, "should anyone come calling. Temptation is a specialty of mine."

"Yes, about that, I've always meant to point out that you've given serpents everywhere a bad name, you know."

"Hey, the knowledge was there for the taking," Crowley said, hands in the air as if to absolve himself of blame. "You're the one who gave an _angelic_ sword to _human beings_."

"Yes, you keep bringing that up, and yet it's really the one reason we've been working together all this time."

"In that case, I'll mark it as a stroke of genius."

"Weren't we heading upstairs?" Aziraphale reminded him.

Crowley had finally run out of comebacks. He retook the angel's hand, and led them upstairs.

= = = = =

The End

 

###### 1\. So in many ways, it was just like any other day on earth.

  


###### 2\. Of course, he didn’t know it at the time, but his old/new Bentley would be waiting for him there, which would more than make up for the superfluous gaming console and the model dinosaurs lining the mantelpiece.

  


###### 3\. Literally.


End file.
